But despite all these exciting new developments in the sector, the familiar issue of skills still comes up in most discussions at one point or another. What skills do civil servants need in order to find, analyse and communicate quality evidence? And what are the most effective ways to build those skills?

We are often asked to share our experience about skills-building. So what have we learned about skills development for evidence use? And what do we need to keep in mind for the future?

The softer sides of change are just as important as technical skills

With the increasing calls for iterative adaptation and ‘thinking and working politically’, it’s essential to remember that skills for evidence use are not only (or even mainly) technical. This important point is well illustrated in the EIPM skills map produced by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. ‘Softer’ skills such as emotional intelligence, storytelling and conflict management are identified alongside more traditionally ‘technical’ skills such as meta-analysis, visual analytics, and evidence gap mapping. One way of surfacing and addressing some of these more tacit areas is through a reflective storytelling approach, as shown by my former colleague on the VakaYiko project, Ajoy Datta in a series of workshops with staff from the Ministry of Youth in Zimbabwe.

Adult learning principles matter

A consensus across all of the major reviews I’ve read is that adult learning principles are fundamental to ensuring the success of training. At INASP we draw on Malcolm Knowles’ five principles. Adult learners must be able to see personal benefit from the training; the training should build on learners’ own experience and provide opportunities for self-direction, taking into account different learning styles; and the learning should be action-oriented and practically applicable. Applying these principles in practice takes detailed planning and participant selection; careful thinking about learning objectives and outcomes (eg is it really skills you want to build? What about knowledge or awareness?); and thoughtful adaptation to contexts. At INASP we are fortunate to have in-house learning specialists who to support us on adult learning and learning design.

Learn about your learning

Individual capacity development approaches can sometimes be seen as astatic ‘bolt-on’ intervention to a larger project—an ‘out of the box’ package that can be applied anywhere. But capacity development is a nuanced, complex and constantly shifting landscape, and at INASP we try to ensure that we keep learning and adapting our approaches. This piece gives a sense of how INASP’s organizational training approaches have evolved through 979 workshops around the world over a 20-year period.

When we were developing and testing our EIPM Toolkit, we made significant changes to the content and delivery as a result of insights shared by partners such as the Ghana Civil Service Training Centre. The final Toolkit materials were a joint effort, drawing on numerous after-action reviews, validation and feedback sessions. And we wouldn’t advise using the Toolkit ‘out of the box’: it’s designed to be adapted to local contexts and to emerging learning.

On to the last but perhaps most important point: capacity development for EIPM is about much more than skills. It’s about organizational capacities, systems and processes like these ones outlined by ODI drawing on work in South Africa and these factors mapped out in the Context Matters Framework. Strengthening civil servants’ skills without addressing the broader issues they face in their work environments means they may not be able to put their new abilities into practice. Likewise, creating organizational systems without paying attention to the individual skills of the people operating within those systems will have limited effect. Skills-building initiatives work best when combined with interventions at organization and network levels.

So, as the EIPM sector grows, and we at INASP move forward with our work on organizational change for evidence use, it’s clear that individual skills will remain part of the discussion, and we are happy to contribute where we can. But we would urge those considering skills-building initiatives to keep an eye on the bigger picture: skills development alone is not enough.